The Great Art Debate

[William the White]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/arts/ ... cream.html

This is an interesting way of looking at it - if someone gave you $120million to spend only on art, or let's go mad and say $2billion to spend on setting up your own gallery, what would you spend it on?

I'll play this game - guess I might be the only taker, but who knows?

When I get some space I'll assemble a list of my small but very overwhelming gallery...

I know already that it starts with Velasquez's portrait of Aesop... old, tired man, but still clutching a book... half priest, half sage... bright eyes... beautiful mind... seen everything there is to see, lived long enough to tell the tale... and not yet ready to go...

My guess on price - there isn't one, the Prado would never sell... but, if by some miracle it ended up at Sotheby's - minimum $350 million spent...

And... Note to the southern posters... The Lucian Freud exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery is just brilliant... Ends 27 May... truly outstanding...

Since a Picasso masterwork has to be in my gallery - and neither Guernica nor Les demoiselles d'avignon are available even with a two billion budget... I wonder if I could buy 'The old guitarist' from his blue period... achingly hungry, sad, beautiful painting... I've no change from 500 million is my guess...

I'll be thinking less ambitiously for the other walls of my living room...

You should also get that one of that woman with a blue jug. You'd pick it up for next to nowt and wouldn't have to disappear up your own arse in doing so!

is that Picasso's Woman with a Blue Jug?

[Wandering Willy]

Since a Picasso masterwork has to be in my gallery - and neither Guernica nor Les demoiselles d'avignon are available even with a two billion budget... I wonder if I could buy 'The old guitarist' from his blue period... achingly hungry, sad, beautiful painting... I've no change from 500 million is my guess...

Sure that's not a Lowry?

[thebish]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/arts/ ... cream.html

This is an interesting way of looking at it - if someone gave you $120million to spend only on art, or let's go mad and say $2billion to spend on setting up your own gallery, what would you spend it on?

I'll play this game - guess I might be the only taker, but who knows?

When I get some space I'll assemble a list of my small but very overwhelming gallery...

I know already that it starts with Velasquez's portrait of Aesop... old, tired man, but still clutching a book... half priest, half sage... bright eyes... beautiful mind... seen everything there is to see, lived long enough to tell the tale... and not yet ready to go...

My guess on price - there isn't one, the Prado would never sell... but, if by some miracle it ended up at Sotheby's - minimum $350 million spent...

And... Note to the southern posters... The Lucian Freud exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery is just brilliant... Ends 27 May... truly outstanding...

Since a Picasso masterwork has to be in my gallery - and neither Guernica nor Les demoiselles d'avignon are available even with a two billion budget... I wonder if I could buy 'The old guitarist' from his blue period... achingly hungry, sad, beautiful painting... I've no change from 500 million is my guess...

I'll be thinking less ambitiously for the other walls of my living room...

You should also get that one of that woman with a blue jug. You'd pick it up for next to nowt and wouldn't have to disappear up your own arse in doing so!

is that Picasso's Woman with a Blue Jug?

no - I think bruce is thinking of one of Lucien Freud's Women with the big blotchy jugs....

[Hoboh]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/arts/ ... cream.html

This is an interesting way of looking at it - if someone gave you $120million to spend only on art, or let's go mad and say $2billion to spend on setting up your own gallery, what would you spend it on?

I'd try to buy every Enzo and Desmosedici RR made for starters then an F-14 Tomcat, a steam loco, concorde and Bolton Wanderers. Thats enough art for one day.

[malcd1]

Sistine Chapel - Art or decoration?

http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/ ... index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[William the White]

Sistine Chapel - Art or decoration?

http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/ ... index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Art in the service of money, aiming to hit the taste of the paymasters and succeeding...

Good job, well done, well paid... Popes satisfied... God silent on the subject...

Didn't like it myself... Did like Raphael's School of Athens a couple of rooms down the way...

[TANGODANCER]

Sistine Chapel - Art or decoration?
http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/ ... index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Imagine, with the scaffolding in place already, being given the job of just painting it all with rollers in one colour Dulux emilsion. Imagine the pain, the care, the stiff necks and backaches and the sheer time involved. If it's decoration, then decoration is an art. To me, who's only seen it in pictures, TV and videos it's just staggering.

Then again, you could get good old Tracy on the job. She'd make it art.

[malcd1]

Sistine Chapel - Art or decoration?

http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/ ... index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Art in the service of money, aiming to hit the taste of the paymasters and succeeding...

Good job, well done, well paid... Popes satisfied... God silent on the subject...

Didn't like it myself... Did like Raphael's School of Athens a couple of rooms down the way...

I don't like it either. Obviously it would be better to visit than see it on the internet but as I have no intention of visiting the Vatican City, I am quite sure I never will.

[William the White]

Sistine Chapel - Art or decoration?
http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/ ... index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Imagine, with the scaffolding in place already, being given the job of just painting it all with rollers in one colour Dulux emilsion. Imagine the pain, the care, the stiff necks and backaches and the sheer time involved. If it's decoration, then decoration is an art. To me, who's only seen it in pictures, TV and videos it's just staggering.

Then again, you could get good old Tracy on the job. She'd make it art.

She's also spent plenty of time on her back in the cause of art over many years of concentrated endeavour.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Emin- ... terior.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[David Lee's Hair]

Sistine Chapel - Art or decoration?

http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/ ... index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I used to know a fella who's bog roof was a complete copy of the Sistine Chapel... I think it wsas called the Cistern Chapel

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

Sistine Chapel - Art or decoration?

http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/ ... index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Art in the service of money, aiming to hit the taste of the paymasters and succeeding...

Good job, well done, well paid... Popes satisfied... God silent on the subject...

Didn't like it myself... Did like Raphael's School of Athens a couple of rooms down the way...

The reason people like Michelangelo and Da Vinci made names for themselves that still resonate today is that they did not merely aim to hit the existing tastes of their paymasters, but they went off on frolics of their own and did things that were not in the rigid established traditions of the day (getting away with it thorugh sheer genius and chutzpah). I think the Sistine Chapel is an example of this beautiful rebellion, along with the Last Supper, the Madonna of the Rocks etc.

Having said that, seeing the Sistine Chapel in person was a pretty disappointing experience. In the daylight, absolutely crammed with tourists, and newly (gaudily?) restored, it did not blow me away.

[TANGODANCER]

Tell me this isn't pxss-taking of the highest order.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/ ... light.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[William the White]

Tell me this isn't pxss-taking of the highest order.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/ ... light.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Are you saying you lack the imagination to appreciate invisible art?

[TANGODANCER]

This is a pic (not mine) of the choirstalls in Seville Cathedral. All carved, every figure different. I walked round it for ages and it's trully beautiful. I call it art of the highest order.

[William the White]

Have you not got one of that hilarious monument to Columbus?

I love seville cathedral.

And loathe it.

In pretty much equal measure.

[TANGODANCER]

Tell me this isn't pxss-taking of the highest order.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/ ... light.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Are you saying you lack the imagination to appreciate invisible art?

Not at all, I would immediately experience a distinct sense of space where the £8 in my wallet used to be.

[TANGODANCER]

Have you not got one of that hilarious monument to Columbus?
I love seville cathedral.
And loathe it.
In pretty much equal measure.

Probably not, although it's hardly its finest feature. Some cretinous female was stood with her leg around one of the eight foot figures while her boyfriend took a pic,so I didn't bother.

[William the White]

Tell me this isn't pxss-taking of the highest order.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/ ... light.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Are you saying you lack the imagination to appreciate invisible art?

Not at all, I would immediately experience a distinct sense of space where the £8 in my wallet used to be.

It has to be the April 1 edition of the torygraphonline surely?

[William the White]

Sistine Chapel - Art or decoration?

http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/ ... index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Art in the service of money, aiming to hit the taste of the paymasters and succeeding...

Good job, well done, well paid... Popes satisfied... God silent on the subject...

Didn't like it myself... Did like Raphael's School of Athens a couple of rooms down the way...

The reason people like Michelangelo and Da Vinci made names for themselves that still resonate today is that they did not merely aim to hit the existing tastes of their paymasters, but they went off on frolics of their own and did things that were not in the rigid established traditions of the day (getting away with it thorugh sheer genius and chutzpah). I think the Sistine Chapel is an example of this beautiful rebellion, along with the Last Supper, the Madonna of the Rocks etc.

Having said that, seeing the Sistine Chapel in person was a pretty disappointing experience. In the daylight, absolutely crammed with tourists, and newly (gaudily?) restored, it did not blow me away.

Mostly, I agree... This is an amazing work, clearly, and Pope Julian II is to be congratulated... He commissioned it, and was well satisfied...

[William the White]

For this small and select and beautiful crew that occasionally inhabit this thread... A major Edvard Munch exhibition starts at Tate Modern on 28 June for about 3 months...

I'm hoping to make it in mid July...

Looks very, very promising...

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-mo ... _exhb%20(2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)&utm_content=